Tony Robbins

14 REAL-LEADERS.COM / FALL 2020 COVER STORY: CRISIS LEADERSHIP PLAYBOOK Now 60-years-old, Robbins recalls an early business deal in 1977, at age 17, when he tried to buy his first real estate during an oil crisis that had pushed interest rates to 18 percent. With the world in economic turmoil, Robbins wondered how things would ever normalize again. “Yet, you learn that a leaders’ job is to find a vision beyond where you find yourself in that moment,” he says. “It’s important to see a crisis for what it is, and not something worse. Fear of failure can make a situation seemmuch worse and impossible to turn around.” With fear running rampant again in financial markets today, Robbins considers this emotion one of the greatest threats to effective leadership, yet something positive if approached correctly. “We are scared of being hurt, we are scared of the economy, we are scared of not being in control, and now we are even scared of each other. In times of great uncertainty, leadership is the most valuable skill you can have,” he explains. “At its core, a leader is someone who influences others’ thoughts, emotions, and actions for the greater good. Leaders do what’s right, not what’s popular. They create culture; they don’t follow it.” It was exactly this attitude that gave Robbins the strength to lead a group of executives when tragedy struck in 2001. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Robbins was in a roomwith 2,200 attendees from 45 countries during a leadership seminar in Hawaii. News broke of the terrorist attacks in New York, and chaos ensued. “I had people from every religion, who spoke eight different languages in that room,” he recalls. “The divisions of the wider world, triggered by the attack, came pouring into that seminar, and conflicts broke out between opposing world-views.” With heated arguments flaring around him, and some thinking it was the end of times, Robbins took charge and made the group focus on the facts, rather than allowing emotions to cloud their judgments. “It got very unpleasant. Some dismissed the Twin Towers death count as being less than the approximately 3,200 people who die from cancer each day; others called it divine retribution. It was important to acknowledge the painful experience and respect diversity of thought, yet I asked people to instead consider what they might learn from the event, and how they could help, rather than going into their emotional homes.” Robbins asked a man who was shouting angrily if he had any family or friends in New York who had been affected that day. He didn’t, and Robbins asked him if he regularly got angry with situations. The man snapped back: “What do you mean!?” Robbins asked a crying nurse how often she felt guilty over the loss of others. “Every day,” she replied. “People were nurturing what they nurture,” says Robbins. “Going to the same emotional home they felt most comfortable.” For someone who, as a teen, was once chased from home with a knife and ended up sleeping in a friend’s laundry room and later in his car, Robbins knows that how you mentally deal with a crisis is vital. “What you choose to focus on can be divorced from real life — it’s about training your brain to think differently. If you see your situation as the biggest crisis of your life, you’ll act differently from someone who thinks instead that it’s an incredible challenge to help people, and a time to gear up for something different. “Leadership is about understanding that people have an emotional home and that during a crisis, they go there. See a crisis for what it is, and not worse than it is.” Robbins’ poverty-stricken background drew him to study the mindsets of people who had also come from humble beginnings, yet gone on to achieve great things. Robbins read howmany had looked around during times of crisis and fear and asked how they could add value. One of the first books he ever bought was The Magic of Believing by Claude Bristol. Written in 1948, it draws on the philosophy that the energy of the subconscious mind can help individuals achieve any goal. Many believe that what you think, you become, and Robbins is living proof. Robbins, whose aim is to provide 1 billion meals to the hungry by 2025 through Feeding America, has his hand in more than 50 businesses — including about a dozen he helps actively manage — and employs some 2,600 staff around the world in industries as diverse as education, live events, hospitality, media production, business services, professional sports, and entertainment. He thinks there is always opportunity for growth in a crisis. “Frommy research, I realized that maximum pessimism seemed to equate to maximum opportunity,” says Robbins. “Legendary philanthropist John Templeton once told me that crisis either crushes you or it creates a breakthrough. During this current pandemic, leaders should be focused on creation, not retreat.” During the 1930s depression, Templeton began his “CRISIS EITHER CRUSHES YOU OR IT CREATES A BREAKTHROUGH. DURING THIS CURRENT PANDEMIC, LEADERS SHOULD BE FOCUSED ON CREATION, NOT RETREAT.”